“I don’t know if they planned it all along,” he continued, “or figured out what happened up north and saw an opportunity, with us out here all alone, but the fact remains they’re coming. And we can’t let them out in the strait.” He let that hang a moment before continuing. “Arracca’s observers reported a bigger fleet of heavies than we’ve ever run into”—he shook his head, unseen by any except those watching—“which wouldn’t worry me by itself. We can sink whatever they send at us, and if anything big got past, what could it do? Their BBs can carry troops, lots of ’em, but none have been reported carrying landing craft. No boats at all. That means they’d have to offload troops in a deep anchorage at a dock. That won’t happen at Grik City because they’d have to get past Fort Laumer. The first one that tried would get sunk in the channel and block it—which they must know, because that’s not what they’re going to do. That brings us to our problem. Apparently, the Grik’ve got wise, and it looks like most of their army means to cross in galleys.
“For those who don’t know, galleys are small ships with a bunch of oars that can go anywhere they want, with the wind or against it.” He paused. “And people, they’ve got thousands of ’em. Those galleys are what we have to stop. If they get out in the strait they can scatter, and we can’t kill enough to matter. Oh, we’d probably sink a few hundred, between us and Arracca’s planes—if we weren’t too busy fighting the heavies—but Commodore Tassanna figures even if we got half, which I don’t think we would, the rest could land wherever they like and our people on Madagascar would wind up facing two or three hundred thousand Grik, probably armed with muskets and the improved artillery Mr. Bradford reported down south. Our friends can’t stand up to that,” he pronounced simply. “The Maroons and Shee-Ree will fight like hell, but there’s only about six thousand of them. General Maraan’s Second Corps is still there and that’s another thirty-odd thousand, but chances are Madagascar will fall. Then, while First Fleet’s still trying to put everything back together, the Grik’d probably keep reinforcing until they can pull the same stunt against Mahe Island.” He took a deep breath. “Folks, if that happens, we’re done out here. All we’ve fought and suffered for will be for nothing—and we’ll probably lose the war.”
He didn’t need to add that “lose the war” meant “wind up eaten,” sooner or later. He also didn’t add that if it just came down to numbers, they were even more screwed than the forces occupying Madagascar. With a little more than half of Gutfeld’s 3rd Marines aboard, Santa Catalina had 750 people to defend her. All the DDs and AVDs together had about the same, so about 1,500 combined. Arracca could send—or, God forbid—bring another 3,000, including the rest of the Marines, but that was it. Grand total: less than 4,500. Their only hope was that it wouldn’t come down to numbers.
He shrugged, again unseen. “So here’s what we’re going to do: Captain Reddy didn’t order it and doesn’t like it, but Commodore Tassanna and I told him we’re going up the Zambezi River ourselves, to put a stopper in it. We’ll go upriver, fighting where we have to, until we reach a narrow bend the flyboys spotted at the end of a fat spot, almost a lake. That’s where we’ll sink whatever comes at us until we choke the river off. Our escorts will watch our flanks and Arracca will support us with her planes—and then herself, if she has to. She’s still got some guns, you may recall.” His voice hardened. “I’m sorry, people. This is a tough one, and I wish I could ask for volunteers. Instead, I volunteered us, and it was a crappy thing to do, but we don’t have any choice. We will block that river. We have heavy weapons, a strong veteran crew, and the entire Third Marine regiment to help us do the job.” Major Simon “Simy” Gutfeld’s 3rd Marines were part of General Rolak’s I Corps and had come along in case the commodore saw an opportunity for raiding. They hadn’t expected anything like this, but Simy was all in. “And make no mistake, Marines,” he added for the 3rd’s benefit, “you’ll be crucial. Galleys can squirm through some pretty tight places, and I guarantee you’ll be in the action.”
He paused again, for quite a while. Finally, he spoke once more. “I know what most of you are thinking: ‘How long will we have to hold?’ The answer is, I don’t know. Right now, most of First Fleet simply isn’t seaworthy. Even if Captain Reddy sent it down—and didn’t lose half of it trying—it wouldn’t do us any good. He’ll move heaven and earth to get here as fast as he can and support us however he can. But we will block that damn river as long as we have to—and as long as a single one of us is alive. What’s more, if we can do that, we’ll be handing General Alden a safe place to land his army, close enough to the enemy capital that he can take it with a hop.”
He sighed. “Well, that’s it. That’s the mission. It isn’t pretty, but it is for all the marbles. I can only make one promise: however it turns out, nobody will ever forget USS Santa Catalina.” He puffed out his cheeks. “That is all.”
Switching off the intercom, he turned back to Laney just as his XO, Mikey Monk, stepped onto the bridge with a pair of Lemurian Marines. Laney was ashen faced, but didn’t even look at the ’Cats. He merely shook his head. “I’ll, uh, I’ll go below now, Skipper, if that’s okay. Back to my engine room.”
“What? No more bitching?” Monk demanded, goading, almost breathless. His dark hair was disheveled under his hat and he looked like he’d sprinted there. He hated Laney and saw his chance to get rid of him slipping through his fingers.
Laney shook his head. “No. I’m done with that.” He looked back at Russ, eyes steady. “You’re . . . we’re really gonna do this?”
“Right now.”
Laney furrowed his brows. “Yeah.” He took a long breath and looked at the overhead, thick with conduits. “You’re right, Skipper,” he finally said. “I’ve never been much. Won’t ever be. All I’ve got is my engine. But as long as I’m alive, you’ll have it too.”
“You realize your engine, boilers, the whole damn ship”—Monk barked a laugh—“an’ ever’body aboard, are gonna have holes shot all in ’em, or get blown up or hacked to death before this is through?”
Russ held up a hand. “That’s enough, Mikey. I think he knows.”
Laney nodded. “Sure. Sure, I know that,” he said distractedly, almost whispering. “But don’t say it so loud!” He gestured at the ship around him. “You want her to hear?”
“She already knows too, Mr. Laney,” Russ told him, almost gently, watching the sheen appear in the man’s eyes. “I think she’s known this time would come ever since we found her. So let’s treat her sweet while we can, okay?”
“Aye, aye, sir. Am I dismissed?”
Russ nodded.
Almost tripping as he turned the wrong way, Laney corrected himself and stiffly exited the pilothouse.
“He’s completely lost it,” Monk observed, a little shaken by how . . . let down he felt, and how compliant Laney suddenly was. “You still ought to relieve him.”
Russ just waved it away, looking fondly at the Lemurian bridge watch around him, gauging their reactions. Most seemed to approve. The ’Cats got it, and they were in. They knew the stakes. In a way, this was what they’d been fighting for all along. If they couldn’t hold the river, they’d probably lose the war. But if they did, and Captain Reddy came in time with First Fleet and all of I, II, and III Corps, they might finally win. “Hell, Mikey, we’ve all lost it,” he said. “But Laney’ll be all right for now. Long enough, I think. And did you see his face? He’ll keep the screw turning as long as anybody on this goofed-up world possibly could, if just to keep the only thing he really loves alive.”
He looked out the windows down at the fo’c’sle and watched ’Cats, sailors, and Marines placing narrow sections of iron plate, pierced for riflemen to fire through, between the stanchions. A lot of plate had been captured at Grik City, and Russ scarfed some up and had them prepared. Marksmen would have to crouch down to do it, but they could fight from behind the armor. Netting would be rigged abov
e, to entangle boarders. Higher up, thick, grass-filled mattresses were being strung between the stanchions. They’d stop arrows and musket balls too, for a while. There’d been a number of notable close-quarters fights in this war, and it was almost inevitable that they’d soon face one for the book. He intended to protect his people as best he could. He refocused on the way the purple sea parted before the ship, creaming white down her sides. She was leading the way, the “screen,” just four steam/sail (DD) frigates, two of which, having suffered the indignity of having some of their guns removed and becoming small seaplane tenders (AVDs) themselves, were already on the flanks. Frankly, Russ doubted they’d be much help against what lay ahead and was already contemplating how to use them best. Behind them all steamed Arracca, the thousand-foot-long wooden aircraft carrier, converted from a seagoing Lemurian Home. She wouldn’t proceed upriver yet and would do so only as a last resort. For the time being, she’d linger near the mouth of the Zambezi, with the AVDs to guard her, while she covered Santy Cat’s advance from the air. But if she had to, she could probably block the river all by herself for a time. If it came to that, however, it would probably mean they’d already lost. It would certainly mean that Santa Catalina had failed—and everyone aboard her and the DDs detailed to accompany her, Naga and Felts, was dead.
Finally, Russ raised his gaze to the hostile shore of Africa, not so distant anymore. The coastal plain was broad and marshy, with clumps of strange trees surmounting little hills. Tiny in the distance, herds of large animals of some kind roamed the shallow swamps and grassland, unconcerned by their approach or the savage species that made their land its home. Grik didn’t like swamps, and even when the Grik used their cooperative hunting tactics, the coastal beasts were fairly safe. Even if the Grik killed one, they still had to get it out. There was easier prey on firmer ground. Farther away, purple mountains loomed, only slightly darker than the sky above.
Everything looked deceptively peaceful; the late-morning sun was dazzlingly bright and the sky was clear, unmarred as yet by any clouds. Colorful lizardbirds flitted among the foremast booms and snatched morsels on the water, disoriented by the ship’s passage. There hadn’t been any enemy traffic in the strait for some time; even the supply barges carrying food and ammunition to the beleaguered Grik expeditionary force already on Madagascar had stopped after Arracca’s planes sank so many. Those Grik troops, under constant attack by the Shee-Ree and their allies (local descendants of all Lemurian ancestors), along with the human Maroons—and, basically, Madagascar itself, in the form of the hostile land and its many predators—were reportedly in very dire circumstances. But to Russ, it was hard to imagine what lay ahead. He’d been in some godawful actions, but almost always out on the open sea. Somehow, he suspected what was coming within the narrow confines of the Zambezi would be much, much worse.
He debated sounding general quarters but decided to wait. The enemy had maintained a pair of heavy shore batteries at the half-mile-wide mouth of the river, and they were surrounded by the usual clusters of adobelike Grik warrens. Not cities or anything like that—just little villages to support the defenses. Arracca’s planes had bombed the gun positions (and warrens) repeatedly and mercilessly when they first came on station, so the batteries shouldn’t be an issue. The river quickly narrowed, apparently becoming deeper with a clear channel, based on the estimated drafts of what had been seen coming and going before they arrived. Russ doubted they’d face much resistance at all—for a while. Word had it that the Swarm was coming downriver in a mass, following several Grik BBs, but there wasn’t anything between them and the coast. Commodore Tassanna estimated that Santa Catalina and her consorts would probably meet the first enemy ships about the time they neared the bend in the river, if they hurried. Ideally, they’d get there first, but that would be tricky without a pilot and they couldn’t count on it. No allied vessel had ever been up the Zambezi before. “We’ve all lost it, Mikey,” Russ repeated quietly, “but without this, we’ll lose the whole damn thing.”
* * *
* * *
Russ was wrong about one thing: there was something—someone—Dean Laney loved besides his engine. And the problem wasn’t that voluptuous, almost stocky Surgeon Commander Kathy McCoy didn’t know he existed; she absolutely did. She just could hardly stand him any more than anyone else could. But “hardly” was an important distinction and remained a source of hope for the engineer. Her face was pretty, in a rough-hewn, square-jawed sort of way, though her often tired, knowing eyes unconsciously reflected a lot of the misery the war had shown her. Lately, that was in the form of bleeding, crying ’Cats who somehow managed to set their shattered PB-1B Nancy floatplanes down in the water beside the ship. Though better planes were supposedly in the works, Nancys, a variation of the first aircraft the Alliance ever built, remained the backbone of the fleet air arm. Smaller, faster, pursuit ships, P-1C Mosquito Hawks—more commonly called Fleashooters—could carry machine guns and a couple of bombs now, but they couldn’t carry a Nancy’s load or land in the water.
Kathy’s medical division tended the wounded, and the ship’s air division salvaged the wrecks or patched repairable planes and sent them back to Arracca. Kathy probably should’ve been on the flagship herself, but most of the badly wounded, like their ravaged planes, wound up on Santy Cat, so the grinding pace of the carrier’s air operations wouldn’t be hampered by dealing with them. That made sense, but it also made sense that she should be where she was most needed. Besides, one reason the word “hardly” was so significant was that she was a woman and, by some twist of fate, the only one aboard USS Santa Catalina. There were others, mostly Impie gals, in Arracca’s engineering spaces and hangar deck, but there wasn’t a single solitary human man over there. There were few enough on Santy Cat: just Captain Chappelle, Lieutenant Monk, Chief Dobson (the bosun), Major Gutfeld, and Dean Laney.
The captain was always courteous and appreciative that she was there, but showed no romantic interest. That was probably as it should be, Kathy supposed, and despite starting out enlisted, Russ Chappelle was very conscious of the behavior required of him as Santy Cat’s commanding officer. (This despite how things had turned out between Captain Reddy and Sandra Tucker, but everyone understood those . . . different circumstances, and knew they’d kept things “correct” for a very long time. Kathy could’ve been resentful, even catty, but was actually happy for her friend and colleague, particularly now that she’d been rescued unharmed.) But that still left her without a man. She supposed she really didn’t need one but for a few things, from time to time, but also kind of wanted one, and there just wasn’t much to choose from. And with things looking so grim . . .
Mikey Monk was the “prettiest” man on the ship, but had an Impie gal waiting in Baalkpan. So did Dobson, though he did show interest. Not happening. Dobson was enlisted, and even if he didn’t care that he had a girl, Kathy did. She didn’t know about Gutfeld. He hadn’t always been a Marine, but he was now—all the way. He was friendly, even funny, but didn’t talk much about himself. And all he seemed to care about was working his Marines, all day, every day, as much as possible. That left Dean, who’d been crazy about her ever since she once showed him a trace of compassion—and cured his hemorrhoids—while chewing him out for being a jerk. And he was still a jerk! But he didn’t have an Impie gal, he wasn’t enlisted, and he’d remained almost droolingly devoted to her for years in the face of zero encouragement.
She’d begun to feel her defenses slip. Then came the captain’s speech. They were headed for the mouth of a river leading straight to hell, and as she approached the stairs to the bridge, to discuss what she needed to do to prepare for what was coming, she saw Dean Laney’s distracted, dejected form shambling down from the pilothouse. “Oh, what the hell?” she murmured, and stepped to intercept him.
“You gonna throw me down the rest of these stairs?” Laney asked miserably, nodding at the companionway leading into the castle below. “I
prob’ly have it comin’, an’ it would just about make my whole damn day complete.”
Kathy was taken aback. “No,” she said. “What’s up?”
“You heard what’s up. And just now, at the end of my useless life, I finally realized what a heel I’ve been for most of it. Worse, I gotta trundle my baby’s carriage right up to the furnace an’ throw her in.” Kathy knew he always called the engine his baby.
“It can’t be that bad, can it?”
Dean finally raised his gaze and looked at her balefully. “Oh yeah. You’re goin’ up to see the skipper. You’ll see.” He waved around at the ’Cats securing mattresses and mounting machine guns on the rails. “We’re goin’ right in among them hungry lizards, every last one, to feed ourselves to ’em.”
Kathy’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t accept that. I won’t. Sure, I heard, and I know it’s a dicey situation. . . .”
“Dicey?” Laney snorted.
“Don’t interrupt! Yeah, maybe it’s even worse than that. But I won’t just give up.” She put her hands on her hips and tilted her head at the Lemurian Marines working nearby. “You see them quitting? I don’t. And unless you’re even less a man than I thought you were, you won’t either.”
“So you think I’m a man—of some sort, anyway?” Laney ventured, his gloomy expression lightening a bit, with a flicker of an awkward, almost . . . charm she’d never seen before.
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